“Birds are and always have been reincarnated old men with Tourette’s syndrome having somehow managed to dupe the reproductive saga. They fuck each other and tend to their home repairs and children while never missing their true mission. To scream at the top of their lungs in horrified hellish rage every morning at daybreak to warn us all of the truth. They know the truth. Screaming bloody murder all over the world in our ears, but sadly we don’t speak bird.”
Last year my dad cleaned out his attic and produced a bunch of old stuff the rest of us had given up searching for years ago. I was invited to paw through the boxes during a trip home, on the lookout for anything worth keeping.
It was a fascinating mess to dig around in: these were relics from a time when our family still functioned as a single unit, before anyone ever dreamed it could be otherwise. Even so, there was very little I wanted from that particular version of the past. A dish I was given at birth, a small oil painting, a couple of beloved childhood books – these held the power to nourish me now just as they did back then, and could at least squeeze into my carry-on luggage.
As for the rest… as a city-dweller with no storage space and no plans to procreate, I didn’t see the point of clinging to old report cards or Science Fair “participation” awards.
I abandoned all this leftover junk in my sister’s garage, reluctant to perform the emotional chore of throwing it away. Not to be outdone in that department, she waited a few months and then shipped the whole remaining pile cross-country to my doorstep.
Surrendering to this experience meant deciding which pieces of the past will survive to haunt me in the future. That future version of myself is as unimaginable now as my current life would have been to the awkward, hopeful kid in those photos.
More than anything, I long to be disconnected from the past.
Where is the magical line that distinguishes denial from transcendence? How do you pay tribute to your own history without giving it undue emphasis or influence?
Now that you’ve done the work of digging yourself out of that grave, what do you do with all the extra dirt? No matter what, there’s always going to be a sunken spot marking your point of exit.
There are two stories waiting to be told about every life. The first is the story of what happened to you. The second is the story of what you did about it.
Both stories contain enough violence and humiliation to make silence seem vastly preferable.
I was a late bloomer, but only because there was nowhere to grow.
Perhaps I absorbed the wisdom of the tumbleweeds I frequently saw rolling through the desert. The bushy part you see blowing in the wind is made to die and detach from its root structure, which lives on underground. During the tumbling that ensues, long, thin seed-pods pop open mechanically in the presence of moisture, releasing their tiny seeds into a potentially more hospitable environment.
Their genus is named “Kali,” but not after the fearsome Hindu goddess – it’s from an Arabic word for salt, as in “alkali.” The plant is thirsty by design.
As one of the rare weeds that actually managed to roam off and form my own new colony, it’s hard to know what I owe to those original roots. The story of what happened to me is more or less already established – so where is the story of what I did about it? From here it seems most of the credit is owed to the wind.
I finally went ahead and tore up the yearbooks. They were from grade school and contained little except redundant class photos I already have elsewhere. I threw away the “Citizenship” certificates, the participation awards, anything that honored only the first half the story.
Everything left over fits in a slim blue file folder.
Despite my longing, it still felt ruthless to do it. These paltry artifacts are meant to enliven our memories later in life. As you fondle the paper with wrinkled hands, they’re supposed to croon: You were there.This really happened. This is what your life felt like.
In their absence I resolve to put my hands to better use, continually untying the dry knots threatening to tether me to that old, dry ground. When the stalk snaps, I’ll rejoin all the others who have surrendered to the push of the wind, the vague promise of greener land.
That will become the second part of the story. What did I do about it? I remained true to my nature. Though I found water, I never lost my thirst.
Every person’s life contains a profound sadness – but yours might not actually be the one you’d first think of if asked. Meanwhile, the real one might be so obvious to others that they never do ask.
